UPDATED: Lindbergh board approves 2013-2014 budget

Demographic task forced OK'd to study enrollment growth

June 12, 2013 - The Lindbergh Board of Education voted unanimously tonight — Tuesday — to adopt a 2013-2014 operating budget that projects expenditures of $61,576,532 with anticipated revenues of $61,581,211 — a surplus of $4,679.

In a separate matter, the board voted unanimously to establish a districtwide demographic task force to study the district's aggressive enrollment growth.

Look for complete coverage in the June 20 issue of the Call. Tuesday night's Board of Education meeting took place after the Call went to press. Below is our June 13 print story.

A proposed 2013-2014 operating budget that projects a surplus of roughly $4,600 was scheduled to be considered earlier this week by the Lindbergh Board of Education.

The Board of Education was set to meet Tuesday night — after the Call went to press.

The proposed 2013-2014 operating budget projects expenditures of $61,576,532 with anticipated revenues of $61,581,211 — a surplus of $4,679. As proposed, expenditures total $99,563 more than the district’s final 2012-2013 budget, while revenues total $218,553 more than the final 2012-2013 budget.

Increased expenditures include a board-approved 2-percent salary increase for district employees and a 2-percent increase in health insurance benefits.

Salary and benefit increases for the coming school year total slightly more than $700,000. To help fund those increases, the proposed budget would reduce various Business Services accounts — insurance reserve, postage, supplies, elections and band uniforms — by $292,500 and transportation by $95,000, according to Chief Financial Officer Charles Triplett.

In his budget message, Triplett noted the increase in projected revenue for 2013-2014 is a result of “a rise in sales-tax revenue and a small increase in state funding for its higher revenues.”

But Triplett cited a “re-occurring reduction” in funding from the Voluntary Interdistrict Choice Corp. as the district phases out of the voluntary transfer program.

While the proposed 2013-2014 budget contains $395,918 in VICC revenues, “this amount will be less than $25,000 by 2016-’17 when we will have three or fewer VICC students in the district as upperclassmen at LHS (Lindbergh High School).”

The district’s original 2012-2013 operating budget adopted in June 2012 projected expenditures of $60,969,554 with anticipated revenue of $60,998,867 — a surplus of $29,313. However, final figures for the 2012-2013 budget place expenditures at $61,486,969 with revenues of $61,362,658 — a deficit of $124,311.

Board members discussed the district’s proposed 2013-2014 budget during a June 1 workshop meeting. At the workshop, Triplett told board members that 2013 is a reassessment year and Lindbergh’s assessed value declined by roughly 5 percent.

“... We were hopeful of having some increased assessments and some new revenue, but that didn’t happen ...,” he said. “We had about a 5-percent decrease in assessed value in the district. But we’ll be able in September, when the board sets the tax rate, to roll up our taxes if we would like, to recapture most of that revenue and stay relatively revenue neutral ... I will say this budget is based on taking that roll-up ...”

Triplett noted that 92 percent of the district’s revenue comes from local taxes, 6 percent from the state and 2 percent from the federal government.

Board President Vic Lenz said, “... What the roll-up allows us to do is to roll our tax rate up to where we’re bringing in the same total tax dollars that we had before.

“So it’s not really an increase on the community. It’s just a readjustment of that so we take in the same income and the community pays the same amount.”

The actual amount of taxes homeowners pay to the district is based on the assessed value of their home, Triplett said.

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